Definitely not a war propaganda film, as it errs on the side of empathy, even sympathy with the Japanese. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had taken the edge off American vengefulness. The cast is very good. Hayakawa presages his later, similar, more famous role opposite Alec Guinness. The sound synch issues are a big problem, so opt for a better version if possible.

At about 42 minutes in the sound track is silent for about 2 minutes; after that it's severely out of sync. This applies to the H.264, MPEG, and DivX, and I suspect all the other versions.

This film differs from all the WWII horror fighting films I have seen. It displays a tenderness not found in run of the mill war films. It was a tender and I must say a loving look at what human beings are capable of under extreme circumstances where even the so called enemy has soul and compassion. I am a grown 70 year old man and I cried profusely at the ending. A great relief war film you will enjoy if you have a heart!

There is a much cleaner version on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI1V6FQAp2s This one here is all messed up

What made this film so interesting is the fact that it came out in 1950 so soon after the horror of the Japanese Occupation, and conveys a convincing authenticity. I knew nothing of Agnes Keith until visiting Sandakan in November 2009. The lovely spacious house that the Keiths had lived in,built for the tropics, is today a museum. After the war Agnes dug up writings she had buried in the grounds of the camp. Also the family of three made a point every Sunday of going over to the beach side of the island in Sandakan Bay where they were first interned to enjoy themselves.

At about 106 or 107 minutes in I noticed the sound appeared synched more or less properly.
Even though, the sound went out for such a while it is a moving experience to see the how like the nazi the Japanese were.
It explains why I couldn't even look at Japanese products for so many years without getting sick.
The new made in America Japanese cars I believe has started to swing me. American Japanese interment camps during the war never had such a bad reputation, as these Japanese camps where Europeans and American civilians were kept in conquered territory.

The movie looks great, but there's a defect on the sound track of the DivX version about a third of the way in - just noise for a couple of minutes, then after that the sound track resumes, but remains minutes out of synch.